The Terminal War: A Space Opera Novel (A Carson Mach Adventure) (27 page)

Mach slammed his fist on the dashboard. “Damn it. How many of these things have they got?”

Another cruiser had uncloaked and made easy work of the drone with a torpedo. It cruised the length of the southern horn and vanished back into blackness.
 

The bridge hissed open. Babcock staggered in, leaned on the console to catch his breath, and dabbed a handkerchief on his forehead.
 

Tulula joined him, and Squid Three floated between them.
 

Babcock straightened his glasses. “We might have a solution.”

Mach sprang from the sub-controls and raced over. “What’s the situation?”

“We’ve got codes for two lactern particles,” Tulula said. “If I reconfigure the scanner, we might be able to detect cloaked ships.”

“Excellent,” Sanchez called over Mach’s shoulder.
 

“There’s a catch,” Babcock said. “If we try it, we lose our scanning ability.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Mach said. “Viewscreens will have to do.”

Lassea held up a thumb. “I won’t let ‘em out of my sight.”

Nigel loped over from the far side of the bridge. “That might not be a good idea.”

Mach frowned. “You’ve only been here five minutes. This is how we operate. If there’s a chance, we take it.”

“You misunderstand me, Captain,” Nigel replied and raised his bony black finger toward the scanner. “I think they tracked the drone’s path. Two destroyers are heading toward the asteroid belt.”

Mach looked up at the screen and confirmed it.
 

Oh crap.

“Everyone to their station!” Mach screamed. “Evasive maneuvers. Now!”

Lassea piloted the
Intrepid
out of the asteroid belt and to a position behind the shield sphere. In the middle of the failing force field, Mach saw Tralis’ capital ship change course, steering the CW fleet away from the southern tip of the horan horn formation.

“Tralis!” Mach shouted over the comms. “Two destroyers incoming toward the asteroid side, high latitude. Do you copy, over?”

A female voice, one of Tralis’ communication officers, responded in the affirmative. “You did will to drag them out of formation, Captain Mach. We’ll take it from here.”

Babcock looked up from his console, eyes wide with alarm. “Mach, that’s crazy! They’ll be in firing range of the horan capital ships.” He gestured across his smart-screen and spoke directly to Tralis, giving them his data.
 

“CW fleet, this is Commander Tralis. Prepare to engage the Axis Combine. I’m sending attack vectors right now. We move in twenty seconds.”

Babcock shook his head.
 

“This is insane,” Lassea said.
 

“This is war,” Sanchez replied.
 

Mach stood up from his chair and surveyed the battlefield in front of him. The two destroyers that had moved to track their position were now being turned into fragments of trash by six vestan frigates, who had combined to make a small capital ship. Its sheer volume of laser ordnance overwhelmed the two horan destroyers.
 

Mach’s heart began to beat faster as he felt the energy of battle seep into his veins. Although he knew the two destroyers were disposable, a reuse on the Axis’ part to give the CWDF false confidence.
 

His smart-screen flashed with the receipt of the attack vectors.
 

The crew looked up at him from their positions around the bridge.
 

“What’s happening?” Lassea asked, swiveling in her pilot’s chair.
 

Mach read the instructions twice to make sure he didn’t misunderstand. “Full front attack on the east and west horns,” he said. The words dropping like a brick.
 

“They’ll be slaughtered,” Babcock said. “Did they not listen to a damned word I said?”

Mach was deep in thought. It was too late to stop the plans now; the vestan shield was breaking apart as the frigates were joining to make three capital ships, which joined with the CW’s four capital ships and a dozen destroyers. Some forty-plus smaller fighters launched out of the central capital craft and swarmed around like flies.
 

To Mach’s brief reckoning, they were outnumbered two to one.
 

“Tulula, ready the ion cannon. Sanchez, you and Nigel are on lasers. Adira, I want you on the torpedoes. Here’s the plan: Babcock, you carry on working with those codes. We needed them yesterday. Lassea, I want you to keep us behind Tralis’ ship until I tell you to split… when that happens, I want you to send us beneath the capital ship’s hull. That’ll bring us under the Axis’ horns. If the CWDF are going to engage like this, we might as well take advantage.”

“Aye, Captain,” Lassea said, visibly shaking.
 

The rest of the crew saluted Mach and got on with their tasks.
 

Mach watched the battle unfold on the viewscreen.
 

The great scorpion formation of the Axis was turning to face the bulk of the CWDF force, which was now splitting into an inverted V shape, with half a dozen destroyers and twenty fighters on each side of the V, and the capital ships contained in a solid defensive block at the base.
 

Not a bad tactic, Mach thought, considering the difficult circumstances.
 

The two forces moved into position and then it began.
 

Thousands of laser bolts filled the darkness. Sparks, debris, and bursts of flame erupted as the smaller fighter craft on each side engaged in graceful dogfighting, each of the vessels emitting plumes of maneuvering thrusters as they fought for supremacy.
 

From the east side of the battle, the Axis horn made up of the sleek horan destroyers, arched in toward the right flank of the CW formation, huge ships exchanging fire in rapid volleys.
 

“Babcock, how you getting on with that scanner upgrade?” Mach asked, knowing that the CWDF had left themselves vulnerable to attack through the center of their V formation.
 

“Ready to patch in a few seconds,” Babcock said. “Though there are no guarantees.”

“The north and south horns are shifting to the center,” Adira said, alarm starting to etch into her voice as the right CWDF flank began to crumble under the sheer weight of numbers.
 

The Axis capital ships were now getting closer to firing range, but so were the CWDF and vestan ships. “Lassea, get us out of here. Dive!”

“I’m on it,” she said, inputting the commands and shifting the
Intrepid
below the main bulk of the CWDF force. Above them, two vestan capital ships split apart to allow the first volley of the Axis’ central attack pass through them without damage.
 

“Adira, I want you on that ion cannon, ready on my say-so.”

She nodded, focused on the holoscreen in front of her, which would soon become useless once Babcock added his new software.
 

As Lassea piloted the
Intrepid
down below and out of the way of the main fighting, Mach saw with horror the entire right flank break apart. The Axis’ eastern tip pierced through the defense. Further behind, the whiptail was shifting around.
 

“Okay, uploading,” Babcock said. “Ready to scan in three… two….”

The holodisplays in front of everyone’s consoles blinked out. The overlay map on the viewscreen followed, leaving them with just visuals, which, given the fight around them, meant they could barely see anything. Apart from a patch of dark space leading in a column from the main body of the horan formation.
 

“Scanning now,” Babcock said.
 

A pair of CWDF fighters buzzed by their position just a few dozen meters away, chasing a trio of horan ships.
 

“Sanchez, now!” Mach said.
 

The hunter was already on it, jabbing a finger at the gesture controls. The
Intrepid’s
gamma engines hummed loudly as the energy diverted to the laser battery.
 

A pair of red beams flashed on the viewscreen, taking out two of the horan fighters. The pair of CWDF craft quickly took out the third, but just as Mach was about to let out a cheer, the group of destroyers on the west horn tip blasted them into pieces.
 

“Shit!” Adira said firing the ion cannon toward the destroyers, but the range was too far.
 

“Easy,” Mach said. “Conserve the energy until my orders. Lassea, get us the fuck out of here. Head lower and bring us round toward the rear.”

“Wait! Babcock said. “I don’t know, but it’s working! Look.” He made a quick gesture and sent the results of the scan from his console up on the main screen.
 

In the dark columnar patch leading from the central horan formation were eight more lactern frigates in a tight square formation, heading right for the group of CWDF capital ships. The software, picking up on their stealth particles, outlined their shapes.
 

“Forward the data to Tralis’ group,” Mach said.
 

“Lassea, change of plan, bring us to the rear and above the formation. We’ll sweep down. Adira, I want you to aim for the front ship. Take its system down and—”

“We’ll have ourselves a logjam,” Adira said, smiling.

Mach gritted his teeth and sat down as Lassea spun the craft and engaged its thrusters to send it to the rear of the CWDF line, and then thrust again to alter their vector until they were now floating high above with a view down below.
 

It was a mess.
 

The CWDF was getting annihilated now that their flank had gone. Tralis was trying to regroup, but the vestan frigates were running, leaving gaps.
 

“I’ve got it targeted,” Adira said.
 

“Wait until it gets within two klicks of the capital ship,” Mach said. “We want our boys and girls to have as much surface area as possible to aim at when they come out of cloak.”

The radio chatter from Tralis barked over the comms channel. Mach had to admire the man’s spirit. He was still focused and confident. Mach communicated with his tactics officer about their next move. Everything was ready.
 

“Fire!” Mach said, hoping against everything that Babcock and the Saviors had got it right.
 

The ion cannon thrummed and shook the whole ship. At first Mach thought they had taken a hit, but they were above the main fighting. Down below, however, between the mad light show of life and death, the ion beam struck gold, hitting the front frigate with a dazzling display of crackling energy.
 

The beam of ion particles had struck, shutting down the ship’s systems and engines. The frigates behind it that were on an acceleration vector couldn’t maneuver in time. They crashed into it, log jamming together.

Tralis ordered concentrated fire over the comms.
 

All the capital ships and remaining destroyers aimed and fired their arsenal at the column of lactern cruisers, turning them into no more than a memory. The north and south horns pulled back, now exposed without their invisible backup.
 

The CWDF capital ships concentrated their fire, seeing the effects on the cruisers. Even the fighters were in sync. The north horn broke apart, the column of destroyers and cruisers falling away, unable to withstand the bulk of the fire.
 

Lassea let out a yelp of victory. Babcock slapped his hand on his console as Squid Three chirped.
 

“Great work,
Intrepid
,” Tralis said. “Now stay out of the way and pick things off as you can. We’ve got them on the run now.”

The confidence seemed to flow across the CWDF fleet, the underdog rising to take on the bully. The remaining vestan frigates split from their capital ship configuration and spread themselves thin, creating their shield once more to protect the capital ships from the whiptail of Axis craft.
 

“I want you to keep scanning, Babs.”

“Already doing so, Mach,” Babcock said.
 

Adira was focusing on her task, firing the ion cannon whenever there was an outline within range.

Sanchez was using the ship’s laser batteries to help keep up the stream of fire and take down damaged Axis ships that had drifted out of the formation.
 

Mach’s hands were gripping the arms of his chair so hard he felt something snap within his hand. He ignored the flash of pain and forced himself to relax. He surveyed his crew below him on the bridge, making sure they were on their jobs. Everyone had a steely focus, even the young vestan they called Nigel.
 

But as he assessed his crew, he noticed Tulula stiffen and lose her balance for a brief moment before returning her attention to her console. Her head cocked to one side like a dog responding to his master.
 

“Tulula,” Mach said, “what’s wrong?”

At first she didn’t respond. Beringer looked up at Mach then back to Tulula, nudging her gently. She got the message and focused on Mach. “What is it, Captain?”

“I’m asking the same question. What’s wrong with you?”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “The Saviors… they have communicated some information about the Axis capital ships.”

“Spit it out, then,” Mach snapped, wondering why this information had come so late.

Tulula looked up at Squid Three as it hovered over Babcock’s shoulder. “They think we may have the advantage in this current situation.”

*

As the Terminus war raged on, both sides taking heavy losses and the momentum swinging back and forth, Mach watched on from the middle of the asteroid belt. The fighting had moved further away from the planet, the CWDF chasing down the Axis as they moved to regroup for a retaliatory phase.
 

Babcock said something to Squid Three that Mach couldn’t quite hear, but the little AI drone chirped back something that sounded like a comforting phrase. The drone was attached to a thruster pack jury-rigged from an EVA combat suit. The pack itself was rammed with the contents of one of the
Intrepid’s
fusion crystals—the source of its enviable speed, and of course, the creation of the Saviors. Though without it the
Intrepid
would be reduced to the speed of a normal ship of its size, the power from one fusion crystal could be devastating if engineered in a precise way.